


Teach me to love myself

by Technicallyarevenant



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Because my humor isn't doing so great right now, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky is doing his best to start loving himself, Domestic Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Some angst, Steve Rogers Feels, They love each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23608216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Technicallyarevenant/pseuds/Technicallyarevenant
Summary: Bucky stares ahead quietly. He’s tired and his body aches but he is otherwise perfectly fine. The sun is finally starting to cast it’s light on the city below it, though Bucky had risen long before it had even begun to rise itself.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	Teach me to love myself

Bucky stares ahead quietly. He’s tired and his body aches but he is otherwise perfectly fine. The sun is finally starting to cast it’s light on the city below it, though Bucky had risen long before it had even begun to rise itself. He’s curled up on the couch, and can faintly hear Steve snoring in the other room. At least he had gotten some sleep, Bucky had been unable to even let his eyes close, the threat of a nightmare constantly playing at the edge of his mind. If Steve found out Bucky had been up all night he’d have a fit, but for now, Bucky could just enjoy the quiet morning, watching the sunrise, and the soft sounds of the tv background noise to Bucky’s thoughts.  
Bucky doesn’t notice when his eyes start to slip closed, but he does notice when he jolts awake, sweat beading at his temples and heavy breaths escaping him. His eyes dart around frantically, searching for a ghost of his past that had wormed its way into his dream. When he finds nothing, he falls back against the couch, letting out the breath he didn’t know he was holding and closes his eyes. Bucky pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying his best to forget the pictures his mind had decided to show him this time. After a minute of staying like that, he lets his hands fall back to his sides, ignoring the glint of the sun on his metal arm. He no longer hears Steve’s soft snores, meaning Steve must have gone on his morning run because he couldn’t hear Steve anywhere else.  
Bucky stands slowly, the ache in his body still lingering, but he ignores it. It’ll be fine soon. He finds the kitchen after a moment of standing and just staring into nothing for a moment. He goes through the process of making coffee, giving his hands something to do that wasn’t clenching them at his sides. The smell of coffee drifts upwards and he inhales slowly as his mind finally starts calming back down, no longer screaming at him to do things he didn’t want to do. He has to wait for the coffee to finish, and he yet again finds his hands have nothing to do, so he decides instead to find one of Steve’s empty sketchbooks and a pencil and he begins to draw. He doesn’t know what, but he just needs something to keep his hands busy, to keep his mind busy and off of things that he doesn’t want to think about. He gets so caught up in what he’s doing he doesn’t notice the beep that the coffee maker gives, echoing in the empty kitchen, and he doesn’t hear when the elevator doors open with Steve stepping through them.  
“Buck? You okay?” Bucky ignores him, continuing the lines he’s making on the paper. He doesn’t know what he’s drawing, he just knows that it feels nice to get the feelings in his head out.  
He does notice, however, when Steve sets a gentle hand on his shoulder, and brushes the other one through his hair. He leans into the hand in his hair, the gentle scraping of the pencil stopping as Bucky closes his eyes and practically purrs like a cat. “Is it one of those days?”  
Bucky’s eyes stay closed, but he nods. It is one of those days. One of those days where Bucky doesn’t want to talk, doesn’t want to move, just wants to sit and stare at the wall while he tries to keep his mind from splitting in half while the two different parts of him scream and shout at each other. Sam told him that wasn’t good though, and that he should try and do things to help him get his mind off of the things his mind does on days like these. The drawing helps. It helps more than some of the other things he has tried. He’ll have to ask Steve about what he does when he draws. Maybe he does it for the same reason that Bucky does.  
“Okay Buck, but why don’t we go sit somewhere more comfortable than the barstool?”  
Bucky sighs and nods again, yes, he could move somewhere more comfortable, he could now feel the way his back ached from the way he was hunching over the sketchbook. He stands slowly, closing the sketchbook to take with him and he leans against Steve. He points to the couch, because on days like these, talking feels like it will leave his throat raw and bleeding. He was learning sign language from Clint, so that even on days like these he could talk. Steve was learning too, but he was busier than Bucky, so he was behind on lessons. It’s okay though, because Steve could still understand Bucky, even without talking or sign language, he had learned the way Bucky talked when he wasn’t actually talking.  
Steve smiled at Bucky and placed a hand on Bucky’s back, and started to lead him towards the couch, pausing for a moment to let Bucky snatch up the soft blanket from the armchair that stood next to the couch. Bucky liked soft things, and he’d collected many of these blankets. Steve bought them a lot. Bucky also asked the ceiling voice for them when he found them on the laptop that Steve let him use. The ceiling voice always made sure that they were there as soon as possible and Bucky always marveled at the way they made the voices in Bucky’s head quiet down, especially when Steve was tucked under the blanket with him.  
They both sat down on the couch, and Steve let Bucky fluff the blanket up, making sure that they were both covered by it. Bucky leaned back against Steve, closing his eyes once again. Gentle hands made their way into his hair again and Bucky melted. Steve almost always made days like this bearable.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I want to continue this in some way. I'm not entirely sure. I enjoy writing stucky because I've found that I like my writing best when it's focus is on mentally unstable characters with a list of issues a mile long. Let me know if you guys wanna see more of this, I think I may just do one shots or something because I'm the worst at stories with more than one chapter, which you will know if you've read more than one fic of mine. Thank you guys so much for reading this (and if you've read anything in my "Some Days I Feel Everything At Once" series, thank you so much for getting me over 2000 hits, you guys help encourage me to write so much! I promise I'm still writing that one, I'm just trying to figure out what I want to write. And, if you feel there is something that I need to tag that I haven't, I appreciate any help you could give!


End file.
